Joel Embiid was blunt when explaining the second-to-last offensive possession from last night’s loss to the Celtics.

The Sixers were down three with 13.1 seconds on the clock and looking to tie. They used Tobias Harris as an inbounder and looked for Embiid to set up JJ Redick.

It didn’t go how they planned, resulting in a contested Harris three instead:

No dice.

Here’s Embiid on putting the layup in instead of bringing the ball back out with little time remaining on the clock:

“I’m an idiot. Should have kicked it out or taken it out to shoot it. I didn’t think about the situation and us not having a timeout. I thought we had one and then I looked and I was like, ‘I’m stupid.’ But like I said, that’s on me and I need to do a better job.”

The Sixers were forced to foul on the ensuing defensive possession, which put Jayson Tatum on the line with 1.8 seconds on the clock. Tatum hit both free throws, Jimmy Butler couldn’t get his buzzer-beater off in time, and the game was over.

Brett Brown’s explanation, after the jump:

We hoped to get the ball to Jo, and have the timing of the catch be better. Joel fumbled it a little bit and then tried to orchestrate some movement around him with Tobias and JJ, and send five to the boards. I’m sure if Jo had it over, he would have rebounded and tried to find somebody instead of laying it in. That’s part of his growth. But yeah, it was that notion.

That’s your explanation.

Scanning social media, I see people talking about finding Redick instead, right at this particular moment:

I looked at that a couple of times on replay and I think Redick would certainly have gotten off a shot, but Marcus Smart is pretty close to him coming off the screen. It probably would have been at least half-contested, and then if it goes in, Boston has the the ball coming out of a timeout with 10 seconds on the clock.

So I think the criticism, if that’s the response to this sequence, should be more about the decision to play inside-out via Embiid instead of going straight to the perimeter off the inbound.

This wasn’t the most significant storyline on a night that was disappointing for a variety of reasons, but you would have liked to see everybody “do a better job” in this situation, as Andy Reid, and now Joel Embiid, would say.